Fourth-grade teacher John Hernandez uses the interactive Smart board at Stone Creek Elementary in Irvine as the students use wireless remotes or clickers to answer questions. MARK RIGHTMIRE, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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Fourth-grade students play their instruments during their beginning strings class Thursday morning at Stone Creek Elementary in Irvine. MARK RIGHTMIRE, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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Third-grade student Andrew Chiou writes on a white board at his desk as his teacher Chantal Barney writes on the interactive Smart board at Stone Creek Elementary in Irvine. MARK RIGHTMIRE, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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Music teacher Heejeong Przytulski works with her fifth-grade beginning wind instrument class at Stone Creek Elementary in Irvine. MARK RIGHTMIRE, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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Vocal music teacher Marilyn Perona, left, works with her fourth-grade students during their class at Stone Creek Elementary in Irvine. MARK RIGHTMIRE, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

IRVINE – Though not every classroom is equipped with the latest technology, the tight-knit community at Stone Creek Elementary School attempts to ensure that each child thrives.

"Even though we don't have all the bells and whistles, we're still a school community that is still achieving," said Principal Michael Shackelford.

Two classrooms have interactive Smart boards funded by the PTA, and the school has two sets of classroom responders that allow students to submit answers electronically during class time.

The small school is near capacity with 580 students. It's reached its limit for buildings and portables on the 6.5 acres. Because money is tight, staff members work to ensure that funds are spent only on things that will support student learning.

Teachers at Stone Creek have continued the intensive tutorial and 45-minute after-school programs that in 2010 helped students reach grade-level proficiency. And test scores have risen at the school over the past six years.

"What that tells us as educators is we're working to both close the achievement gap and continue to move all children forward," Shackelford said.

The approach is working.

Stone Creek Elementary has placed near the top of the Register's rankings since 2010. This year, the school ranked No. 3.

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Editor's note: What follows is the Register's original profile on Stone Creek Elementary, crafted as part of our 2010 school rankings. Since then, Stone Creek has placed in the top 10 in 2011, 2012 and 2013.

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By SCOTT MARTINDALE / ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

IRVINE – Test scores among English learners were languishing when Principal Michael Shackelford first came to work at Stone Creek Elementary School three years ago – and no one knew why.

The kids, who constitute about 40 percent of the Irvine school's population and speak 21 languages, were bright, motivated and seemed to be speaking English just fine.

"We had kids who were at the same level for three or four years; the staff wasn't sure what to do with them," Shackelford said.

"Then they realized that they didn't really know what the child's level was. We studied the data and saw that even though they are proficient orally and auditorily, they were not proficient in reading and writing."

It worked; the academic powerhouse began performing even better than before.

"Teachers had been working harder, not smarter," Shackelford said. "We talked about working smarter, not harder."

For its impressive academic achievements working with a highly diverse population, Stone Creek Elementary has been ranked the No. 7 public elementary school in Orange County in the Register's 2010 survey of public school quality.

In just the past year alone, the school saw a 30-point jump in its Academic Performance Index score, to 946. The maximum API score – an overall gauge of a school's scholastic showing – is 1,000.

"All the teachers make learning fun," said 11-year-old Trevor Weiss of Irvine, a fifth-grader and student council vice president. "They try to make it exciting, challenging. Instead of just saying the answer, they give us little hints. They make us think."

Nestled in the heart of Irvine's Woodbridge community, Stone Creek Elementary opened in 1978 on about 6.5 grassy acres. The campus was named a California Distinguished School in 1998.

The school draws students from Irvine's Woodbridge community as well as parts of Tustin, including the new Tustin Field and Columbus Grove developments.

Built at the height of the 1970s "open classroom" movement, Stone Creek's brown-colored buildings have virtually no interior doors, and classrooms seem to flow into one another, separated only partially by walls (and many of those walls were added just last summer during an exhaustive renovation project).

The "highly stylized" buildings, as the principal refers to them, have soaring wood-beam ceilings, expansive picture windows, and almost no walls that meet at a 90-degree angle. Even Shackelford's own office has five walls.

Stone Creek uses a highly fluid, multi-tiered intervention system to ensure kids get the academic help they need.

Offered after school daily, the tutorial sessions are divided into two main sections – one for below-basic kids, and one for kids in danger of falling below proficiency. The former runs from October to May; the latter runs for six consecutive weeks in the middle of the school year.

During the tutorials, kids work in small groups with their classroom teachers and focus on math or language arts, or both. Teachers pull the kids in and out of these tutorial sessions throughout the school year, based on how they are performing, Shackelford said.

Stone Creek Elementary, while not a large school, also is full of spirit. Last month, kids collected about 1,600 pairs of shoes to send to Haiti's relief effort in just three days – the equivalent to every child and staff member bringing in two pairs of shoes, Shackelford noted.

Stone Creek also consistently has the best showing of Irvine Unified's 22 elementary schools at the school district's annual track and field event in May. About one out of every three eligible Stone Creek kids participates every year.

"They always introduce us as the school with the most kids participating," said fourth-grade teacher John Paul Hernandez, who has been at Stone Creek all six years of his teaching career. "We're not the most wealthy school, but the kids are very proud of their school – a lot of school spirit."

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